


The Pieces Win the Chess Game

by GretchenSinister



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012), The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-10-10 06:22:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20523380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: Original Prompt: "Spoilers for The Dresden Files.In TDF, Santa Claus is Winter King, a.k.a. kinda married, to Mab Fearie Queen of the Winter Court.Can I see North being in a loving, healthy, and happy relationship with Mab, please?"It’s been so long since I read the Dresden Files, and I’m not caught up with the series at all. Fortunately, it has its own wiki.North and Mab’s marriage was arranged. To everyone’s surprise, it works out.





	The Pieces Win the Chess Game

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr on 5/29/2013.

The marriage had been arranged, as such marriages often are. This is not to say it was anything like a human arrangement, made to increase wealth, or gain political power, or ensure the proper sort of heir. No, the marriage between Nicholas St. North and Queen Mab was arranged as part of a very long game, the only long game, the only game played by the few older and more powerful than these two beings themselves. Whether this marriage was the end of an earlier arc or the beginning of a new play, no one player could say for sure. But it was what had to be done at this particular time.

No one really expected it to work as a marriage. The symbolism, and the magic entrenched within, were the important things. The Titania-Oberon play was working, after all, and they, with their constant fighting and long strings of affairs, could hardly be considered to be a successful couple.

Then again, no one told North this. He says their marriage vows with total sincerity, gazing into the face of his lovely new bride. Mab says the vows as they are, and she will keep her word. She understands that certain things must be done to keep the world of magic balanced, and this is marriage is one of them. That is what those more powerful than her told her, and it might be more than the universe’s worth to go looking for loopholes.

She thinks North will be a goody-two shoes, given his role, or perhaps recognize this marriage as the magical necessity it is and leave her alone. At least one of those things seems to be confirmed when they sleep separately on their wedding night. The breakfast invitation he sends her in the morning makes things much less clear.

He courts her. At first she thought it was odd, then that it was oddly delightful, and then, simply, that it was delightful. He is determined to fall in love with her, and she smiles to realize that his nature allows him to do so. When he looks at her, he is not overwhelmed by the sense of the great and terrible destruction Winter can bring, or the silent deaths that are permanently intertwined with its cold and darkness. Instead, he looks on her with wonder, as he does all things, and sees the majesty and beauty of her season and realm as well as her person. He is good, but as a being of wonder his powers extend beyond what others might define as right or wrong, and encompass all that might inspire awe.

Sometimes she thinks even the Moon does not understand this.

As she begins to understand North, she realizes how foolish she was to think that his role might preclude desire. And how foolish to think that his form would preclude hers for him.

It does not surprise her, when they go to bed together, to discover that, in that most intimate of spaces, each is the exact equal of the other.

And so it was, and so it has been, and so it will be, if either of them has anything to say about it. She is not Mrs. Claus, and he is not a King of Winter. But they are each other’s, and if the pieces rather than the players can win the game, they have.


End file.
